December 2010 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
Celebrating Franz Jägerstätter
On October 25 at St. Malachy we gathered, perhaps 150 to 200 hopeful believers, to remember the life of Franz Jägerstätter and his wife Franziska. It was the third anniversary of Franz’s Beatification by the Church, a martyr for non-violence and peace who was beheaded in Berlin in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. He was accompanied on this fearful journey, in spirit, by the huge soul of his beloved wife.
Bishop Tom Gumbleton of Detroit, who was present at the Beatification in Austria in 2007, was our celebrant this night…He had become a friend of Franziska, a still lively widow and her three daughters, after discovering the great story of Franz’s life and death. It was most fitting that the Bishop, sans miter and crozier, offer insights to the life of a saint. Franz trod in the footsteps of Christ’s passion, choosing to give up his life, rather than wage war and take the life of another. As Franz’s (Letters from Prison), newly published, affirm, there was a touching tenderness between husband and wife. To forego this treasured family, rejecting counsel of bishop and priest, was a huge act of faith. Franz had no doubt that death was followed by resurrection and they would be reunited
Why, given the awe inspiring calendar of saints, is St. Malachy so taken with a virtual unknown Austrian peasant form WWII times? In God’s providence and Fr. Daniel Berrigan’s generosity, we possess on a side altar a magnificent carved statue of Jägerstätter. The artist, Bob McGovern, one of our fellow parishioners, carved the statue to honor Fr. Dan’s fifty years as a Jesuit in 1987. Fr. Berrigan, has great devotion to Jägerstätter, but stripping down in his mid-eighties, donated the statue to St. Malachy as a place where the peace of Christ will be celebrated.
This night Bishop Gumbleton spoke of a “revolution of the mind” that we must undergo, as did Franz, to create a landscape in our community and church where Christians have no traffic with violence of any kind. Our children, from the breast till registering with the government at eighteen, will have honed their conscience to a crystal clarity that prohibits killing or joining in war-making. They will have inhaled the mantra, love your enemies, turn your cheek, give away your coat. Bishop Gumbleton, at eighty, has incarnated the Beatitudes. Together with Johanna Berrigan of House of Grace Catholic Worker, they have traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti, seeing up close man’s inhumanity to man, and still can envision peace on earth. So it was most fitting that Tom Gumbleton shared his thoughts on Jägerstätter’s journey. It was a blessing to be present this October 25th night to remember a holy man. On another night many years ago, Franz, on the eve of his execution commented, “I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord.”
Joe Bradley Joe is a member of CPF & St. Malachy
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